On The Impossibility of Knowing (4 of 4)

I’ll wrap this up for now —

All paintings emphasize presence.  There’s something there — even if it’s a white sheet of paper.

But a thoughtful viewer also thinks about absence: 

• Who and what are not shown, but are relevant to the scene? 

• What spaces lack visible marks or activity? 

• What could have been going on in those spaces?

In The Impossibility of Knowing, I’m trying to draw attention to absence. (You could do that via a large, blank canvas, but that’s been done.)

Two other artists in this year’s juried show at the Leonor Fuller Gallery at South Puget Sound Community College – on view now – also draw the viewer’s attention to presence and absence:

Stephanie Broussard’s Moonrise (above) visualizes a female presence in a skyscape of mountain and moon – a presence that is perhaps spiritual, real but unseen.

Lynette Charters’s Zarraga’s Naked Dancer Muse (above) from her The Missing Parents Series removes the actual painting of the two women in the Angel Zarraga’s 1909 painting The Nude Ballerina (below).

o   By painting everything but exposed skin, and carefully using knotholes and grain in her wooden board surface, Charters substitutes and amplifies the missing paint. 

o   According to her artist’s statement,[1] she wants to emphasize “the lack of societal appreciation and wage equality for childbearing and stay-at-home parents.”

In sum, what’s impossible to know?  Just about everything.

[1] https://spscc.edu/art-gallery/2022-2023-Exhibition-Season/SWJ/Lynette-Charters

On The Impossibility of Knowing (3 of 4)

Let’s continue —

The majority of the paintings in this series (I’ve completed 39) feature one or more human figures.  Most viewers spend more time on those – because they can identify with the humans, and/or can easily create a narrative about the humans. I have heard wonderful, amazing narratives that viewers have created – some have awed me.

Take a look at The Impossibility of Knowing (10) , shown below. What narrative do you create when you see this?

I wanted to evoke

• embodiment and disembodiment,

• present and future,

• past and present,

• wondering which figures “see” which figures.

Well, I knew that much when I painted it. Recently, I’ve asked myself to think more deeply.

These paintings emphasize the fleeting nature of the moment and of the current setting, by showing the prospect of the figure(s) not being present. But then, all paintings, drawings, and photos emphasize the fleeting nature of the moment and of the current setting.

This is more obvious in figurative or representational renderings — we know that we’re looking at a streetscape, landscape, or mother and child, and we know that this scene existed at some point and place (at least in the artist’s mind), but don’t exist now.

I think that’s one of the reasons we love images of children.

• We are in awe of their child-ness, and

• we know that the people in the image are probably no longer children, certainly not children of the age we’re viewing.

• We’re wistful for their growing older and dying, and for our own growing older and dying.

On The Impossibility of Knowing (2 of 4)

More on this perhaps-enigmatic subject —

Let’s turn to this painting, The Impossibility of Knowing (34). Here’s what I generally write about this series:

'“‘The Impossibility of Knowing’ refers to the strength of memory and imagination, compared to what is ‘real’ or ‘observed.’ In these paintings, a solid shape, figure, or silhouette interacts with its mirrored outline, against a shadowed or textured background. Something that seems substantive is augmented with its mirror, shadow, future, or past. The interplay creates visual dynamism as each shape is pulled in its opposite direction, and interpretive dynamism as each object or figure interacts with its complement.”

Put less formally, I developed what is admittedly a simple compositional conceit: identifying the principal figure or figures, and mirroring them (right to left or vertically) in outline only. So I’ve got a figure and an echo of the figure. They often interact spatially, creating three sets of patterns:

• the principal figure,

• the outline, and

• the shapes formed by the intersection of figure and outline.

That’s what going on here, in The Impossibility of Knowing (34). To catch the viewer’s eye, I used texture and color in the figure and in the background. The texture base is acrylic gel medium with Ultramarine Blue paint; the other colors are oil paints.

On the impossibility of knowing (1 of 4)

Lots of folks have asked me what I mean by “The Impossibility of Knowing” as the title of my largest series of paintings. Preparing for talks at two galleries this summer, I had reason to put my meaning into words.

In contemporary art, my viewing preference is non-objective abstraction. Several reasons, but foremost I enjoy my ability to reflect and create my own interpretation of the work. My interpretation may be “narrative,” or may just be the joy of places the painting or photo takes my mind. This is a great part of the joy/wonder of Mark Rothko’s “classic” paintings, and Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematism (which I’ve explored in eight posts).

Analogously, my preference in painting is non-objective abstraction, because I want to give the viewer control of interpretation. My preference for painterly abstraction is also motivated by the ability of the camera to capture scenes similar to what the eye sees. I don’t limit myself, though. I paint everything, and have recently been fascinated by portraiture.

However, most viewers benefit from having something to grab onto — something on which to base their own interpretation.

• Titles can provide that something, which is why I seldom curse a work with the title “Untitled.”

• A shape, highlight, or shadow can encourage an interpretation without spelling it out. In The Impossibility of Knowing (39), I included some highlights and shadow to help the viewer.

• Identifiable figures certainly provide interpretive fodder. Most of us react positively when we see people in paintings, photos, or drawings. They literally humanize a composition, providing scale, and adding relevance for our lives.

That’s why architectural renderings of building or landscape elevations usually include realistic or at least schematic human figures. That’s why many people express joy in seeing human figures in a painting or photo that “look like” them — fuller-figured, older, darker-skinned than, well, you know.